The aims of this proposal are threefold: (1) To investigate the medical and literary antecedents of Benjamin Marten's A New Theory of Consumptions (London 1720, 1722); (2) To determine the influence of this theory on other 18th century English and American works with respect to the development of a doctrine of Contagium vivum; (3) To discover facts about the life and fate of Benjamin Marten himself. The methods to be employed are the usual historiographic techniques associated with problems of this kind.